Browsing by Author "Kaasalainen, Eveliina"

Aims. In basic education, students acquire important basic skills that are necessary for success in further studies. Craft competence developed in the craft subject promote not only practical and theoretical knowledge, but also students' awareness and self-knowledge. The study examines the perceptions of vocational teachers about craft competence as school readiness for vocational education and the factors affecting it, such as the need for cooperation between educational levels. Methods. The research data was mainly collected in November 2022 with a online survey from vocational teachers (n=81). The survey was distributed both on social media and directly to vocational schools with research permits. The research was guided by phenomenography due to its nature of exploring perceptions. The answers to the open-ended questions of the survey were analyzed by means of phenomenographic analysis, and as a result, description categories characteristic of phenomenographic analysis were created. In addition, the material was quantitatively analyzed for the attitude statements in the questionnaire. Results and conclusions. Based on the perceptions of vocational teachers, craft competence as school readiness was divided into three descriptive categories: craft knowledge, craft skills, and craft attitudes.These description categories included handcraft skills, theoretical knowledge about craft tools, materials and design among other things, artistic ability, working fluency such as self-directedness, work safety skills and problem-solving and reasoning skills, as well as individual factors such as attitudes, values and motivation. Vocational teachers considered craft competence important, especially with technical craft skills being particularly valued. The level of craft competence was generally assessed as weak, which was also evident from the answers to the open questions. The need for cooperation between the craft subject and vocational education was felt to be important, and the positive effects of cooperation were seen especially as an increase in awareness and the development of skills. Cooperation could be implemented through workshop activities, visits and jointly set goals